Why We Need A Teacher

Alexander believed anyone could do what he did in working things out for himself; he also believed that lessons would reduce the time needed to do so. I am far from certain about the former statement, while being pretty sure of the latter. The problems in working it out for oneself are many, even if you have the excellent guide that is given by Alexander in chapter one of his third book ‘The Use of The Self.’ This account of how he worked things out is undoubtedly idealised, but in his idealisation Alexander lays out a pretty good framework for learning what he knew. 

Within that account the chief difficulty becomes apparent, namely the need to do something unfamiliar, not to rely on habit, not to rely on feeling, to allow something different to happen. All too often at the last second, we revert to the familiar, go with the habit, make our usual choice, missing the new road that is in front of us.

Alexander was well aware of this, as the most recent blog by Robert Rickover makes clear. Alexander’s practical experience of teaching both himself and others emphasised this tendency to revert, to rely on habit, to rely on old conceptions of how to go about things, even simple things like sitting and walking.

In talking of conceptions here, it is worth remembering a belief of Alexander’s, that John Dewey picked up on, namely that experience precedes conception. There are some very deep waters we could get into here about conception and what is going on in general, but from a practical point of view Alexander is right. Only when you have experience can you really begin to know, to have concepts in terms of ‘knowing how,’ which is very different from ‘knowing that.’

Getting the experiences is where a teacher comes in, where the teacher can help you gain in minutes experiences that it took Alexander months to work through. Those first experiences of difference in how you can move, how you might use yourself, are what allow you to begin to be aware of what you currently do, how you currently work, what you might stop, what might be right, what might be wrong in terms of how we function. 

We too often rely on the pre-verbal solutions of our childhood, modified haphazardly or sometimes modified consciously and badly, as our way forward. A teacher can help us correct these by making plain the implications of our patterns of use, our habits, not just verbally but through experience and words, putting the two together so we can learn the concepts for ourselves. As we do so, we develop Conscious Control for ourselves; we can use ourselves intentionally. 

Without a teacher we are liable to lose ourselves, always returning to old habits, relying on old feelings of right, that are wrong; tying ourselves in knots, missing the way forward, repeating old mistakes, following the old ways, that have led us into impasse, always, and forever will do so, unless, we first learn to stop, call a halt. With that a teacher can help, before pointing the way to a new use, new habits that can free us towards a better and more constructive use of ourselves.  

Psycho-Physical Attitude and ‘The Tyranny of The Should’s’

Lessons this week reminded me how useful it can be to contrast how we use ourselves when we approach something from the perspective of ‘wanting’ to do it, rather than believing that we ‘should’ do it. Both ‘wanting’ and feeling that we ‘should’ do something are, from a psycho-physical perspective, attitudes within which certain uses of the self are embodied. 

With the former if directly expressed we will often come up into an attitude where we are focussed, freer, lengthening in stature, with our breathing released – we are properly speaking more relaxed; we are using ourselves well. In the latter, we respond to feeling that we ‘should’ do something by tightening around our faces, pulling forward, pulling down, making our movements jerky, as we force ourselves into an action, where our free choice is either denied or hidden. 

Whether we choose to do something because we want to or because we feel we should in different contexts, depends on habits that can reach back into early childhood.  Habits that we evolve in relation to how our will and spontaneity were construed by our parents and the culture we found ourselves in. 

Three caveats here, the first is that learning to recognise what we want, we are not always at first skilful at listening to ourselves, we too often carry an external threat with us, which we tighten ourselves against. Secondly, that once we can freely express what we want, it does not follow that we can freely move into carrying it out, we can try and then tighten ourselves. The freedom of thought and action, as well as the freedom in thought in action that Alexander advocates comes from sustaining inhibition through out the entire cycle of expression and action. Thirdly, to recognise what you want, to be able to express it, does not necessarily make for selfishness, egotism and the dominance of individual wishes and preferences. Rather, it allows for recognition of oneself, one’s desires, wishes, wants and the irreducibility of one’s freedom to choose for oneself and not to be slave to what psycho-analyst Karen Horney termed the ‘tyranny of the should’s.’

In developing Conscious Control of one’s own individual psycho-physical attitude here, it is worth remembering that Alexander was explicit in saying that it was not all about thinking about your head and neck, important as that is. What is important is thinking about why you are doing it, even the most unpleasant, unwished for tasks can be transformed by the change in experience that comes from recognising one’s intentionality in choosing to pursue them. A favourite formulation of this comes from Ouspensky via Maurice Nichol. This says that we have a right not to be negative and if you apply inhibition to this in its fullest and most radical sense you will soon come up!

Use – a scientific concept.

A working understanding of ‘use’ is something anybody with an interest in Alexander Technique has to acquire. A ‘working understanding’ involves practice and ability to employ oneself purposefully, and skilfully in any activity. Indeed ‘practice,’ ‘employment,’ ‘skill,’ ‘purpose,’ as well as ‘habit’ provide the etymological roots for ‘use,’ which is the founding abstraction of Alexander’s work.

That ‘use’ is foundational for Alexander work should be clear to any one, that it is an abstraction is sometimes missed, with ‘use’ being taken as something concrete. Where use is taken concretely it becomes common to accuse people with no knowledge of Alexander’s work of misusing themselves. This I think is a mistake on a number of levels, foremost of which is that the practical problem for many people is that they have no concept of using themselves at all. ‘Use’ is how Alexander began to analyse his own actions and how he analysed the actions of his pupils. ‘Use’ is therefore the unit of analysis of Alexander work. To develop a working concept of use, a person has to abstract from his or her own experience - something practical that works.

Doing so they have to abstract the ‘similarity of the difference,’ to borrow a phrase from David Bohm, that the use of themselves can actually make to their lives and the difficulties that they are experiencing. In doing this, ‘use’ comes to explain what has happened and what is happening.

‘Use’ therefore elucidates the subject matter of Alexander’s work, as well as providing the explanatory power and the unit of analysis. These three elements together, are what the great Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, saw as being necessary for the methodological grounding of a scientific discipline. Which is how John Dewey characterised Alexander’s work. It is a scientific discipline for each person that seeks to learn it, like Alexander, to borrow a phrase, this time from Kelly who was inspired by Dewey they are ‘personal scientists.’ 

To view people as ‘personal scientists’ is to recognise the importance of intentionality, of wishing and willing – something Walter Carrington in his published talks stressed as being necessary for success in Alexander work. 

To talk about being a ‘personal scientist’ here is to follow Dewey in ‘Human Nature and Conduct’ in saying that while we rely on habit we must also be able to use our intelligence to review habits and change behaviour as necessary.

Which is very much how Alexander came to see things. The difference between Dewey and Alexander being, as the former, I think would have admitted, is that the Alexander Technique provides the practical way of changing things, turning them around. 

Stopping, Looking and Seeing

Today I start with a quote from the opening paragraph of art historian John Berger's, 'The Art of Seeing' – something I wish I had written as it expresses beautifully, something fundamental, not just about the work that I do, but about life and what it is to be in the world.

 'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.'

This quote resonates with me so much, because when I am working I often make a distinction between looking and seeing, listen and hearing, feeling and touching, and for that matter feeling and being touched. Of these, I place the most emphasis on vision, as when we begin to allow ourselves to stop look and see, our relationship with all our senses changes, improves. We experience the world differently, we see the world differently, we hear the world differently and we can touch and be touched by it differently.

Use in effecting function, as Alexander noted affects ourselves, how we see our possibilities, whether we have can have hope. Hope in our darkest hours is a light that can lead us onwards, finding a way to a new future. We do not have to ‘paint ourselves into a corner’ as George Kelly observed and to free ourselves we need not just words but the ability to see a situation differently, to see the alternatives. Only then do we have a choice where we can weigh up the implications before committing ourselves to action.

Stopping which I blogged about last week, involves a commitment to look at a situation, to see it, to become focussed. The experience of which, is a coherence not just towards the situation but within ourselves, as it includes us, as we release, lengthen and widen, breathe, prepare. This reflects the fact that most of our experience is both pre and non verbal – words giving the handles that allow for patterns and sequences to be identified, thought about, and communicated to others.

Stopping also allows us to look at others, be with them, be alongside them and I will be blogging more about this aspect of my work in coming weeks. For the use of the eyes and the facial muscles involves our earliest habits, habits that link us to others in an inter-personal world, an inter-personal world that is sometimes hidden, but always there. This world, the world of love and attachments is the source of our deepest anguish, profoundest sadness, as well as moments of immense joy, happiness. It is a world to be understood, that in our being with others, we can take a conscious stance towards.

Which brings me back as always to the Primary Control its importance in organising not just ourselves but our experience of the world, whether we want to better understand others, perform better or simply free ourselves from aches and pains that interfere with everyday living. The Primary Control is the means through which conscious control can become established and constructive – it is what makes Alexander’s work unique and it is freely available to anybody who knows how to stop, look, listen, become aware of themselves and allow themselves to begin to see and hear the rhythms and patterns of their lives, their worlds.